I have lots of joy. I also exhibit the fruit of the spirit in much of my life and have been commended many times for doing "God's Work" (to which I respond: "I have to; He won't).
"Atheists are extremely without joy" is a statement of staggering ignorance and bigotry. I trust that is outside your character. Might be best to stick with a subject about which you actually know something
12 hours ago, oldiesman said:
This opens up a whole lot of other questions for me like, does God work with unbelievers as well. Maybe the whole rap of "the fruit of the spirit comes from the manifestations" is bogus. QUESTION for the group: did VPW make that up or did he copy it from elsewhere... Stiles, Leonard, or somebody else?
As the OP shows, twi is still teaching that the fruit of the spirit comes from the manifestations but also includes by walking by the word. I think other Christian groups will teach the latter but not the former if they believe in cessationism.
Stoic philosophy can and does enable a person to walk in the confidence and calmness, etc. that Paul's epistles as we know them say are "fruit of the spirit."
"In contrast to walking by the flesh, we walk by the spirit, which includes walking by the written revelation of God’s Word and operating the nine manifestations of the gift of holy spirit we received when we were born again."
"When we walk by the spirit by operating these nine manifestations, we will produce the fruit of the spirit."
It's pretty obvious that no Bible verses actually SAY any of that. It was what vpw called "private interpretation."
If I were to go strictly by what's in the Bible, and refused to guess, I'd have to make the following conclusions.
1) The presence of the spirit would make fruit of the spirit possible.
2) Nothing is said to be required for them otherwise- no practice, doctrine, etc. So, the "you have to" anything thing is all personal opinion.
3) Strictly speaking, walking by the written revelation isn't required either. If you do right but don't know which verse says to do the specific behavior, it doesn't undo what you did.
4) As if it needs rephrasing and repeating, neither manifestations nor gifts of the spirit are required.
5) Nothing said that the ONLY way to demonstrate any of those is by fruit of the spirit. People can acquire those elsewhere, with varying degrees of success. There's non-Christians who are confident they've achieved "peace", and probably have. But having the spirit would sure make it a lot easier, by way of the fruit of the spirit.
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Charity
As the OP shows, twi is still teaching that the fruit of the spirit comes from the manifestations but also includes by walking by the word. I think other Christian groups will teach the latter but not the former if they believe in cessationism.
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Rocky
Stoic philosophy can and does enable a person to walk in the confidence and calmness, etc. that Paul's epistles as we know them say are "fruit of the spirit."
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WordWolf
It's pretty obvious that no Bible verses actually SAY any of that. It was what vpw called "private interpretation."
If I were to go strictly by what's in the Bible, and refused to guess, I'd have to make the following conclusions.
1) The presence of the spirit would make fruit of the spirit possible.
2) Nothing is said to be required for them otherwise- no practice, doctrine, etc. So, the "you have to" anything thing is all personal opinion.
3) Strictly speaking, walking by the written revelation isn't required either. If you do right but don't know which verse says to do the specific behavior, it doesn't undo what you did.
4) As if it needs rephrasing and repeating, neither manifestations nor gifts of the spirit are required.
5) Nothing said that the ONLY way to demonstrate any of those is by fruit of the spirit. People can acquire those elsewhere, with varying degrees of success. There's non-Christians who are confident they've achieved "peace", and probably have. But having the spirit would sure make it a lot easier, by way of the fruit of the spirit.
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